Tucson - The RV repair shop

When we camped out last fall in a place where there were no electrical or water hookups (it is called dry camping in RV circles) we discovered the propane burner in our water heater was belching sooty smoke.  We ddidn't discover this until a couple days afterwards when it was towards the end of our trip and we were once again "connected" so we cleaned it up and vowed to check into this issue when we returned to Arizona in February.

view from customer lounge

Flash forward 2 months and here we are back in Arizona so I called a local RV repair shop and made an appointment to take the motorhome in for water heater service on President's day at 10 AM.  the drive time was about 45 minutes but I didn't know if it would take longer so I planned on longer.  Glad I did.  Arriving at the service desk early I waited for about 20 minutes to be helped then found out, after we did the initial paperwork that I could either, a) wait for someone to come pick up the RV and drive it back to their service bay about 1/2 mile away or, b) drive it over myself.  Another customer with a 9:30 appt was still wating (it was now almost 10:15) so we both decided to drive over to the actual repair shop.

I parked the motorhome and went into office to notify of my arrival then waited in the outdoor customer lounge until 11 AM when someone finally retrieved it and took it into the bay.  I wandered over to watch and the technician asked me to go back to the "lounge" and wait.  Harrumph!  Fortunately I brought the trusty Mifi and computer so was able to check email, login to server and also talk with home office folks while waiting.  Yes, I could have read a book, but there were a few things in need of attention and I figured that when we get to Big Bend National park, I will be off the grid for a week, so might as well make hay while the sun shines

Anyway, the work got done for a reasonable cost and I was out of there before noon.  The tech showed me the issue, and answered a couple questions about other issues for my reference.  Now I had to drive back over to the main office and pay my bill.  They had my license number so it seemed prudent to return and settle up.  This took another hour because I missed the turn and had to go the long way around then missed the turn again when someone called me on the hands free phone.  Sigh.  Anyway, we had allocated a half day for this and sure enough, I returned about 4.5 hours after departing the campground to find the lovely wife waiting.  We parked the motorhome leveled it out, hooked up everything and walked around the campground.  She wanted to show me this HUGE RV and trailer rig.  wow.  we met some new neighbors down for the winter from Montana and then headed out to see some friends.
The day was warmer and dry.  Peaceful